


come meet me for the second time

by Elvent



Category: Shiki (Anime & Manga), Shiki - Ono Fuyumi
Genre: Jinrou Natsuno doesn't exist, M/M, Seishin does creepy things, Toshio has issues, everyone and everything is fucked up, now with gore, post-Shiki, this follows the novels' plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-01-20 15:39:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12435966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elvent/pseuds/Elvent
Summary: Toshio invites a ghost, and thus a ghost shall it stay.





	1. Chapter 1

Toshio has accustomed himself to this – or so he thinks, but the cautious (or is it paranoia? When has he ever developed paranoia?) part of him cannot help but startle at the lone figure sitting on the far end of the sofa, in the middle of the dark no less. The culprit only flicks his eyes in his direction before turning to his book, the nerve of him.

He guesses it’s his fault for keeping the windows unlocked at night, but he’s hoped that at least Seishin would retain some sense that as a normal and physically feeble human being Toshio isn’t graced with night vision so would he perhaps kindly switch the lights on whenever he comes? Seeing the man’s unimpressed face however, he’s got the feeling that he’s toying with him. Or he really doesn’t care. Between the two, it’s most likely the latter.

“What, it’s not even midnight.” 

That only earns him a quiet flip of paper. Seishin has always been quiet but he’s even more unresponsive these days (‘these days’ being ‘after-Sotoba days’), so he only dumps his bag on the other sofa and stalks into the kitchen, although not before switching on the lamps in the living area in irritation (as he hopes that they’ll temporarily blind the impossible man). God but he’ll need alcohol for this.

Preparing only one glass, he pours himself a stronger liquor. After three gulps the man finally gets up from the sofa and creeps up somewhere nearby, saying in a low voice: “I need blood.”

Toshio doesn’t turn his head. “What do you even need blood for? You’re not Shiki.”

Yes. As it turns out Seishin has become a certain subtype of Shiki, one that is alive as far as medicine goes. He feels his body heat whenever he touches him, he hears him breathing whenever they’re close enough, and he feels his pulse whenever he places probing fingers on his pulse points. Hell, on some occasions he even goes to the bathroom to relieve himself. As far as he knows Seishin is still capable of everything a living human person can do.

And yet.

Keeping his back on Seishin for a longer time than necessary makes him feel a bit uncomfortable, so he turns his head only to see what the man is doing. Seishin is apparently looking at him but it’s an empty stare that goes right beyond him. 

“Besides, what makes you think I’m willing to give my blood to you – again? One time is more than enough. Do you think I’m going to allow you that kind of power over me?” He didn’t use his control on him the first time, but there’s no guarantee that he won’t use it this time.

Seishin’s answering voice is monotone and empty, “You’ll give your blood.”

“How so?”

“You keep your windows open.”

Toshio snorts, emptying his glass. “Probably I want to trap you."

Seishin tilts his head. "You have had numerous chance to do it."

"Probably I want to bide my time."

"You're more impatient than that."

The whole argument is pretty reminiscent of how they used to be, and Toshio is attacked by a wave of nostalgia. "Smartass, but not smart enough. Try again."

“You won’t allow me to seek other victims, so you’ll give your blood in their place.”

“What makes you think I’m that altruistic?” Toshio is almost disappointed. The old Seishin would’ve known him better that he wouldn’t think along those lines even if only theoretically – or he thinks he wouldn’t. 

Seishin gives no response to that, looking as if deciding to stay quiet for real and not heeding Toshio's prompts. It's something that's become more and more familiar from him. Feeling the slightest bit irritated, Toshio points at the ghost of his best friend. “If you want blood, then come get it yourself. Don’t expect me to help you more than that.”

It’s stupid. In the first place he shouldn’t have invited him to his house and opened his windows for him. Following the failure of turning Sotoba into a vampire base, the surviving Shiki might become even more aggressive in repeating the attempt (he doesn’t think Seishin lives that far away from him and it's safe to assume that there are some more Shiki alongside him. It would be really stupid for them to try to transform a large city into a base but desperate people don’t act logically). If not that, then they probably want to kill him as the leader of the human side for revenge. 

Even without all those hypothetical reasons common sense clearly says he shouldn’t. There’s no other way around it – Shiki and humans simply cannot coexist. Preys shouldn’t mingle with their predators, and Seishin himself is a certain subtype he still doesn’t know well. He doesn’t go into coma at day and sunrays cannot burn him, who knows what else the man can withstand? He’s double the danger. 

It’s as it is, but Toshio instead finds himself daring. He knows the danger but still goes with it, and it doesn’t only have to do with his own daring and aggressive nature. As always, he has his own personal motives regarding everything.

Old habits really die hard.

Seishin at last closes the distance and lifts his arm, grazing his needle-fangs on the crook of his elbow. Toshio’s heart beats faster at that, wondering for a split second if he should pull the kitchen knife nearby and drive it into his chest (he’s not Seishin, it’s a ghost –) but he forces himself to stay still and buries that thought deep.

“Why aren’t you going for my neck? It’s right here.”

For a split second he catches something in those emotionless eyes, like a ripple disturbing still water. “The neck contains much larger veins than the arms, you know.” 

He won’t hesitate to kill Seishin however if he does something funny. He might not notice what has gone through him at first, but he’ll pull himself through whatever control he’s been put in and hunt Seishin down. If he doesn’t go first, Seishin will.

Seishin finally relents, gently tilting Toshio’s head to a comfortable angle for him to reach his neck. 

He whispers, almost too quiet for Toshio to hear: “...Of course you will.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Now that I’ve given you what you want, you’ll answer my question.”

A flick of gaze. “No.”

“That’s not how we operate.”

The man (the ghost) picks his shirt up from the floor, previously wedged between the bed and wall. He inspects its wrinkled state disinterestedly before wearing it on. “There’s no agreement like that.”

Toshio lights a cigarette. His bedroom doesn’t really air out well but he doesn’t care, just like with his minimally dressed state. It’s still too early to get out of bed but some people are early risers as it turns out. “Even the air we breathe isn’t free. You’re really out of your mind if you think that I’ll let you go freely after making a meal out of me.”

It’s a neutral, non-threatening tone – much less with his own naked state, but the Buddhist altar equipments and stakes he stores right beside the bed don’t serve nothing. Toshio has done good with inviting enemies to his close quarters and still beating them in the end.

“You won’t believe me and there’s no guarantee I’ll say the truth.”

“Oh, we can just treat this like a game. Indulge me,” Toshio leans back into the propped up pillows, making himself cozy. “Let’s start with easy ones. You’re on your own.”

The man ignores him in favor of searching for his jeans. Toshio continues on, not caring. “You’re not moving as a part of an organized group. It’s been a while, but there’s hardly any change in your routine. Visiting me at night to demand some chomp-chomp, though there’s no fixed schedule. But every few days at least.”

Seishin has done dressing up and is now sitting on the lone chair in the room, legs crossed. The contrast with his nakedness feels rather disconcerting, but Toshio pushes it down.

“I don’t know what you do during the day – it could be something as simple and humane as working, who knows. But there’s hardly anything weird going around, and Fukuoka is a city even larger than Kagoshima. You cannot use the same tactics as you did with Sotoba.”

Seishin has been looking past the large window but now he’s turning to look at Toshio, as if saying: ‘Is that it?’

“There could possibly be other Shiki with you, but well, if there truly are they’d have appeared before me already. Not only am I an enemy, I’m also a free meal. What’s not to love?”

There’s a silence. Toshio takes in a long drag of his cigarette before exhaling out. “Now, what say you? That one is awfully easy.”

He sees Seishin lightly running his finger over the chair’s armrest. With his solemn expression, the picture it makes is a rather surreal one in the dim light of his bedroom. He speaks: “You assigned the same mindset to different individuals, in a different time and situation.”

A sneer. “I wouldn’t know; you tell me. It’s not like I meet things like you all the time. And it’s funny that you’re protesting when you were actually part of them.”

Toshio stands quickly and snatches up his clothes from yesterday. He feels agitated – the room always feels suffocating whenever Seishin lingers one second too long. “Listen to yourself talk. So you don’t like it when I don’t treat you like human beings, but tell me – why should I assign humanity to things that are clearly not human?”

The face looking back at him holds no expression, and no other remark comes out.

He knows. Seishin is just making a general remark, that he isn’t even talking about himself. It’s just like what he’s been doing all this time. To him, when it comes down to it everything really is merely a concept, an idea connected to another without much personal attachment. Toshio knows that, and yet he still falls for his own anger and even shows it. This makes him feel even more irritated at himself.

He wants – what does he want? An old case of bitterness that actually has no place anymore no matter how one sees it? Sotoba is gone, for God’s sake.

Provoking him? Fight me more, damn it – give it to me good and I’ll give back as good. 

(He hates. Hates so much (hates him) he wants to crush it)

His face contorts. He turns so that Seishin is looking at his back instead, injecting as much venom to his voice. “That’s it then. Now get out, I’m sick of you already.”

Ever obedient, Seishin stands up and walks towards the door. Right as his hand touches the door handle however Toshio stops him. 

“One more question. What are you?”

Seishin turns his head. For a few seconds, they hold each other’s gaze. “What do you mean by that?”

“Are you dumb?” Toshio says in mock exasperation. “You. You’re obviously not dead because you can do everything a living person does, but your vital signs run lower than normal people. I’ve never measured your blood pressure but judging by your weak pulse, your blood pressure must be pretty low as well. And while your pulse is weak, it’s also really slow. In normal setting people with your readings would be halfway towards death, and yet you’re up and about like a normal everyday person. This ultimately also means slower metabolism.

“But it’s not only that – you also threw Shiki biology into the mix. Not only you feed on human blood, you also have their regeneration and I’m sure other characteristics, obviously except going into a coma at day. I’d only assume your blood has rather similar characteristic to theirs. But you’re not dead and however slow your metabolism is you’re still alive and able to digest actual food, so why the need to consume blood? Are you really not able to consume human food? That doesn’t add up. Not human but not a Shiki – so what are you?”

It’s a while before he responds. “That is not for me to say.”

“Huh?” 

Both transparent and solid, it slips right through his fingers – all the more he wants to close his fist around it and crush it. But

“You’ve lain with me. You should know best.” And just like that he disappears, leaving no trace in his wake.

 

He supposes he indeed knows. After all, there’s only one answer.

It’s dim all around him, shut out from the outside world. The main source of light in the room comes from the one above the operating table, shining over the body below it – that of a man, stripped naked with no cloth to cover him. Straps are confining his body to the table, with his hands stretched over the armrests.

Seishin is awake, as he has always been. He doesn’t go into a deep coma when the sun rises and wakes when it sets, and thus he’s been fully aware the whole time. He doesn’t fight the restraints and he doesn’t scream, but his seemingly calm body is shivering upon close inspection. It’s cold in the room but he’s never actually felt much cold.

His body is connected to a monitor, which displays some of his vital signs. It shows a systolic blood pressure of 70 and diastolic of 50, while heart rate is 45. While those were abnormal readings, no one could deny that the person showing those numbers is alive. 

Seishin’s body and the operating table are splotched with blood, some of it hasn’t dried up completely. Several bloodied surgery tools are scattered on the small equipment table, as well as empty ampules and vials. A number of procedures have been done on him since the day before.

Toshio walks into the room, the sound of his footsteps drawing in his attention. He turns his head in its direction, gaze immediately trained on the two objects Toshio brings in each hand. Shocked, Seishin subconsciously pulls at the restraints around his wrists as he tries to avoid what is about to come. But they both know it’s in vain.

He cannot see his own expression but he knows his must be of coldness, a determination without mercy. Gripping the stake and hammer in his hands even tighter he walks closer, registering the fearful and helpless look on Seishin’s face. Seeing that would always tug at his heart in the past, but now he doesn’t feel anything at all. 

He looms over the one lying down, stake put into place.

Toshio, his childhood friend pleads, uselessly as the sharp tip of the stake kisses the skin just beside the right margin of upper sternum at a certain angle – pointing at the ascending aorta. He doesn’t stop when it breaks the skin and pierces through muscles, he doesn’t stop when it breaks through bones and blood comes welling up, so much it splashes at his hands and face. He keeps pounding until Seishin’s body jerks downward with the force, until he reaches his spine, until he’s drilled a hole through him.

Like a madman he removes the stake forcefully and reaches into the bloody mess he’s just made. With bare hands he breaks the still-intact parts of the ribcage and widens the wound, the hole, diving into the broken organs and pooling blood with vigor, searching, searching for something but he doesn’t find it. He can never find it, even after he pulls at the tattered lungs, remnants of a heart, swirling and broken flesh. 

Seishin is no more, and he’s the one who’s killed him.

 

Toshio wakes up with a start, bolting upright. It’s dark all around him (he closes his eyes for a second, afraid that he’s returned to the dark room in his dream, looming over a bloodied corpse) before realizing that it’s his own living room. He’s sitting on the couch, having previously been passed out there out of exhaustion from work. He even forgot to turn on lights.

He rubs vigorously at his face, shadows from his dream still slitting through his eyelids. He draws in a few shaking breaths.

The vivid images in the back of his mind bear strong similarities to the ones from the past – though in the place of a female corpse is a living male, and in the place of Kyouko is Seishin. 

He shudders at that. He fears and despairs, and that doesn’t only have to do with the fact that it’s someone he sincerely values (valued), unlike with Kyouko or almost everyone else – but Seishin is different. Has always been different, has always been unique in relation to his being. But.

It’s as if it’d become a reality, a dream come true.

He fears losing himself. He fears giving in, losing control. He once vowed not to do anything to living people, because in that case that would be murder, no matter how much he wanted to, even if those living beings who sided with Shiki have also murdered his kind. It probably sounds hypocritical and cowardly in a way but it has been a line to hold to in the midst of a living hell that was his own village. He doesn’t want to stoop that low even if that’s only for himself and not those people. Beings. He supposes – what are those?

He knows full well that this is not a divided matter. That the evil is the dead, and the righteous is the living – only children would believe in such rhetoric, and it wasn’t even about right or wrong. It was about defending oneself and one’s home, simply about getting back at those who have wronged you. At the root of it, it’s human. But you have to admit that there are unwritten lines no human can cross, bound across generations, because to do otherwise would mean losing your own essence as a human being.

So no matter how much he wants to, he won’t. He doesn’t want to lose himself anymore, and by that extension losing everything he holds dear. He doesn’t want to feel regret. He’s already regretted enough from doing things, from satisfying his own spite, something that feels good in the moment but feels horrible in the long run. Has regretted enough from only seeing what’s before him but forgetting what’s behind him, from trying so much to protect he loses it. He’s not a good person. So this one, he doesn’t want to lose. And yet.

He fears that he’s come to despise someone he once held deep affection for, so much, so much he wants to destroy him. The more feelings are held and shared the sharper turn it takes, the more hatred festering. It’s only natural. He knows he’s only come to hate Seishin this much because he once valued him with the same vigor, enough for him to perhaps want to end his existence himself in his grief and anger. But if it comes to that – he’ll lose his identity, his humanity, his roots and history. Everything that makes him him. Once more going back to the place he was before, alone on his own with everything crumbling before him.

As he mulls over his thoughts the old clock gives off sudden gongs, making him jump and cuss out – but thanks to that he knows that it’s two in the morning. It’s late. Sighing, he cuts the thread in his mind and pulls himself up. He needs one, two glasses of water – and a shower since he’s sweaty and filthy. He wants to rest.

He turns a few lights on so that it’s bright enough to look around, but still dim enough for the early hour to be comfortable. He then moves to collect his bag which he’s abandoned somewhere on the floor – but suddenly stops in his tracks.

– Something peering in from outside, from the gaps between the curtains that cover the sliding glass doors.

Shocked, he freezes on his spot. However it soon disappears, so fast it could leave him feeling as if he’s hallucinated – if he didn’t any better.

They are a pair of eyes. 

He’s sure of it. It may be dark outside but he’s sure because he’s used to being peered at, exactly from these glass doors, exactly in this room. All by one person. However that person doesn’t typically disappear after his presence is known no matter how hesitant he is at times. More than that, the whole house is open for that person. He comes in and goes out whenever he likes, with or without Toshio’s permission. It’s not like him at all.

The height of the gaze just now is different. 

Toshio stands where he is, unmoving. He curses out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very, very sorry it took this long. Chapter 3 will be an interlude, and now it's about halfway done. This fic has done a good job at frying my brain.
> 
> \- Ono didn't specify where Sotoba is located in Japan and it's a fictional village, but Mizobe is a real town that used to exist in Kagoshima prefecture, Kyushu, with the exact same kanji. The physical layout of the town also seemed to be similar to the town Mizobe in the novels. As of 2005 the town was merged with other surrounding towns to form a city called Kirishima. Funnily enough, this is how villages and towns 'die' typically in Japan. When Shiki was written (I was told around 1994) the town had understandably still existed.
> 
> \- The Jinrou physiology bits aren't from the novels, but it's pretty much how I imagine it would turn out. Toshio's questions are my own honest questions in response to my own hypothesis.


End file.
